The idea that video games can be considered a type of art is often discussed in the entertainment industry. Even though the Supreme Court of the United States has given legal protection to video games as creative works, some people still debate whether video games should be seen as art. This discussion continues even when considering creative parts of video games, such as acting, visuals, design, stories, interaction, and music. Some critics have also questioned whether even "art games," which are made specifically to express creativity, should be classified as works of art.
History
In 1983, the video game magazine Video Games Player said that video games "are as much an art form as any other field of entertainment."
The first official recognition of video games as an art form happened in the late 1980s when art museums began showing older video games in exhibitions. For example, the Museum of the Moving Image held an exhibition in 1989 called "Hot Circuits: A Video Arcade," where video games were displayed as finished works of art. Curators chose to present them this way to highlight their artistic value. Similar exhibitions continued in the late 1990s and early 2000s, including "Beyond Interface" (1998) at the Walker Art Center, "Cracking the Maze – Game Plug-Ins as Hacker Art" (1999) online, "Shift-Ctrl" (2000) at the UCI Beall Centre, and several shows in 2001.
Early art games were inspired by the idea of video games as "readymades," a concept from artist Marcel Duchamp, where ordinary objects are presented as art. In a 2003 paper, professor Tiffany Holmes noted that many digital artists created games that referenced classic titles like Breakout, Asteroids, Pac-Man, and Burgertime. These artists either modified the code of simple older games or made changes to more complex games like Quake, blending commercial games with digital art.
At a 2010 conference called the Art History of Games in Atlanta, professor Celia Pearce explained that the work of Marcel Duchamp, the Fluxus movement of the 1960s, and the New Games Movement helped shape modern "art games." She noted that games like Pac Manhattan resemble performance art. More recently, art games and indie games have become closely connected. Professor Pearce said this connection helps more people discover art games and allows indie games to explore creative ideas further.
In March 2006, the French government recognized video games as cultural goods and a form of artistic expression. This led to tax support for the industry and the induction of three game designers—Michel Ancel, Frédérick Raynal, and Shigeru Miyamoto—into the Ordre des Arts et des Lettres. In May 2011, the United States National Endowment for the Arts allowed grants to include "interactive games," showing more acceptance of video games as art. In 2011, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that video games are protected speech, like other art forms. In Germany, until August 2018, laws banned the sale of games with images of extremist groups like Nazis. However, in 2018, the government changed the rules to allow games with such imagery if they met specific standards for social acceptability.
The connection between video games and art becomes clearer when exhibitions include both games and interactive art. In 2012, the Smithsonian American Art Museum held an exhibit called "The Art of Video Games," showing how video games influence culture. The museum later added Flower and Halo 2600 to its permanent collection. The Museum of Modern Art in New York plans to collect 40 historically important video games in their original format to display, highlighting their role as an artistic medium. Each year, the "Into the Pixel" art exhibit, held during the Electronic Entertainment Expo, showcases video game art chosen by professionals from both the gaming and art industries.
The Tribeca Film Festival began recognizing video games with its first Tribeca Games Award at its 2021 event.
Philosophical arguments
Since the mid-2000s, video games have been studied in philosophy and the arts. Scholars often examine video games in relation to traditional questions about art, such as whether they qualify as a form of art. In a 2005 essay titled "Are Video Games Art?" in the journal Contemporary Aesthetics, philosopher Aaron Smuts argued that many modern video games meet major definitions of art. In his 2009 book The Art of Videogames, New Zealand philosopher Grant Tavinor stated that video games share a meaningful connection with other forms of art and should be considered art. Tavinor later suggested that video games fit a category called "mass art," a term used by philosopher Noël Carroll. Dominic McIver Lopes, a philosopher at the University of British Columbia, also argued that video games are art, though he noted their interactivity may make them unique compared to other art forms like music or architecture.
Over time, video games have become a regular topic in the philosophy of the arts, appearing in journals like The Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism, in the Oxford Encyclopedia of Aesthetics, and in collections of philosophical works. Much of the recent discussion has shifted from asking if video games are art to exploring what kind of art they are. Berys Gaut, a philosopher at the University of St Andrews, describes video games as "interactive cinema." In a 2018 book edited by Tavinor and Jon Robson, several philosophers examine whether video games have unique artistic qualities or practices. Zach Jurgensen, in his chapter "Appreciating Videogames," agreed that video games are art but emphasized that their gameplay is an important part of their artistic value. In 2020, C. Thi Nguyen, a professor at the University of Utah, wrote Games: Agency as Art to explore how video games relate to art, including non-electronic games.
Many video games are recognized as art because of their visual design and storytelling. Some games, however, are noted for creating emotional experiences by letting players take on roles in stressful situations. These games often address topics like poverty, mental illness, or sexuality. They are sometimes called "empathy games," as described by Patrick Begley of the Sydney Morning Herald, who said such games "ask players to inhabit their character's emotional worlds." For example, the game Papers, Please places the player in the role of a border agent in a fictional Eastern Bloc country. The player must decide whether to allow people with incomplete documents to pass, often facing difficult choices that affect their family's well-being.
Controversy
Some people say games are art. Others disagree, arguing that games may never be considered art.
In the early 1980s, American courts began to examine whether video games should be protected by the First Amendment, which guarantees free speech. These cases involved laws that limited minors from buying video games or playing at arcades. These laws were based on concerns that video games might encourage violence or addiction. At the time, courts often compared video games to activities like pinball or board games, deciding that video games were not protected speech. However, as technology improved, some argued that video games could be more expressive than simple games because they could create virtual worlds.
The release of the game Mortal Kombat in the 1990s increased concerns about violence in video games. In 1993 and 1994, the U.S. Congress held hearings to address these concerns and criticized the industry for not having a ratings system. This led to the creation of the Entertainment Software Rating Board (ESRB) in 1994. The ESRB assigned ratings to games, and retailers agreed to follow these ratings, such as not selling games rated "Adults Only" to minors.
Despite the ESRB system, some states tried to pass laws that required retailers to enforce these ratings more strictly. Starting in 2000, courts began to change their views about whether video games were protected speech. These courts found that video games could be expressive and that they were not considered obscene under the Miller test. A key case in 2001, American Amusement Machine Ass'n v. Kendrick, helped establish that violent content in video games was not automatically excluded from First Amendment protection. Courts generally ruled that laws blocking minors from buying or playing video games were unconstitutional. However, these decisions did not create national rules because the Supreme Court had not yet made a decision.
Parents, lawmakers, and others continued to worry about violence in video games. In 2005, the discovery of hidden sexual content in Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas and in The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion in 2006 led to new laws being proposed to strengthen the ESRB system. Some states passed laws to fine retailers for selling games rated "Mature" to minors. Video game industry groups challenged these laws, often succeeding because courts had already ruled that video games were protected speech.
In 2011, the Supreme Court ruled in Brown v. Entertainment Merchants Association that video games are protected by the First Amendment. The Court compared video games to books, plays, and movies, stating that they use storytelling and other creative methods to communicate ideas. This decision confirmed that video games are a form of protected expression.
As new art forms emerge, they often need recognition from existing communities to gain legitimacy. Video games, like film and comics in the past, have faced skepticism from critics. Some media outlets focus on the human stories behind games, which makes indie games with clear creators more appealing to journalists. Critics and fans of games have also used the "auteur theory," which suggests that games can be artistic if they reflect the vision of a single creator. However, some argue that the link between being "indie" and being artistic is not always clear.
Some people believe that games can be art, while others think games do not need to be art to have value. For example, game designer Kim Swift says games can be artistic but should not be forced to be art to be meaningful. She believes games should be toys that help adults use their imagination.
The debate about whether games are art became widely discussed in the mid-2000s when film critic Roger Ebert joined public debates about the topic.